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Microsoft Flirts with Open Source
Vin Daryl writes "ZDNet reports on Microsoft's love-hate relationship with open-source software." From the article: "The interoperability lab focuses on getting products from open-source ISVs such as JBoss, to work on the Microsoft platform, he said. 'For example, we often collaborate with JBoss, but in certain areas we might compete with them. It's competition and cooperation,' Hilf explained. 'Over time, as you see the open-source marketplace maturing and becoming more commercial, I think you'll see more of that kind of dynamics. It's not something that's unique to Microsoft,' he said, adding that IBM and Oracle also compete, and at the same time, cooperate with open-source vendors. "
about the sentence "Microsoft Flirts with Open Source" is that it's like the 5 year old's love:
In the kindergarden little boys try to get the attention of little girls by being rude and abusive towards the little girl.
Now a bit seriously, I'm not saying that MS is like a 5 year old - although you could find a lot of examples like that, but the flirting part doesn't hold up either.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer" I think that is the way it goes.
This sounds more like a company who's trying to show everyone they aren't anti open source, because they have open source buddies... seems likes people who say they aren't racist just because they have black friends. (see http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/)
Doesn't sound like Microsoft is Open-Sourcing any of its own work, just exercising the freedom others have (unilaterally) granted to them to modify OSS products. But at least it may give the products more legitimacy in the eyes of PHBs.
"Over time, as you see the open-source marketplace maturing and becoming more commercial"
..
.. help [Microsoft's product teams] understand what attracts developers .. to use Linux in that environment,"
Im what areas are the current Linux offerings less commercial than the MS offerings?
"what we're doing provides value to the [open-source] community."
What exactly of value does the MS Linux lab provide to the Open Source community.
re high-performance computing
"We
I thought you just said that Open Source wasn't really commercial. Yet here we have you copying it. So basically you are cloning a Linux solution while at the same time somehow claiming leadership in that area.
All the MS lab does is produce MS flavoured anti-Linux retoric in a disengenous attempt to steal mindshare in the community. What need do Linux developers have for Microsoft to 'explain' what Open Source is really about. You are merely the chief MS fud spokesman.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Comment about open source maturing gives me heartburn.
Same feeling I get about pundits all over the web yammering about second generation Open Source, whatever that means. Don't know about anybody else but "second generation Open Source" reminds me more of shareware in the '90s than Open Source of recent memory.
I guess this is the future. Software vendors float out little open source bundles of their software but hold the best functionality back for their commerical products. I'm not sure if that fosters innovation or not, but something doesn't smell right to me. I guess people just got tired of writing software and not getting paid so they hitched their wagons to software companies, and I can understand that.
Then again, maybe this is the way it always was and I'm just starting to take notice. But where commercial interests have started entagling themselves with open source, it should be interesting to see what happens in those projects. When every featureset or new software project needs to be tied to the bottom line, these private interests will start to strangle innovation, and the whole open source community will suffer for it.
Microsoft wins if JBoss is hosted on a Windows Server and the database backend is SQL Server 2005. They couldn't care less if you're running Java, so long as it's on their server platforms. Would they prefer you to go all the way with .NET? Sure, but they aren't going to piss away customers willing to buy expensive server software just because they prefer different development tools. Same thing with Oracle. Who cares if the box is Linux, the application servers open source as long as the database is Oracle? They aren't going to tell customers, "buy all our products or we're going to go home and pout."
Well, microsoft *DID* steal the network stack...
It's a hedge - rather than saying "Our product is inherently better and will prevail in the end", they're saying "Our product is established; rather than risk becoming irrelevant in shops where Open Source is used, we want to continue to operate and compete even in places where Open Source has proven to be the winner."
Y'know, Microsoft has maintained a set of interoperability tools for UNIX (I forget what it's called, it includes a POSIX environment, can handle NIS/DNS/NFS among others, works kinda crappy but it works) - this going back over five years. I don't care for Redmond's OS at all but let's face it, they've been driving a huge chunk of the IT sector for a long time now. Microsoft actually provides quite a lot of valid solutions to current IT-related problems, and they're demonstrating that they're ready to attempt to provide more solutions. For a price, of course, but even Open Source has a certain price-tag attached to it, eh?
Bottom line - we Linux fanbois (myself included) had best accustom ourselves to the presence of Microsoft Windows-based solutions in the workplace. If Microsoft can develop, price, deliver and support working solutions it's a fair bet that the PHB's of the world will notice and we'll end up working with some of those solutions. It would be best if we collectively were prepared for this, rather than screaming "Evil!" every time a certain Redmond Washington based firm does something.
Of course, the Big Software Corps don't like this, because when those people employ their computer skills for fun, the resulting code collects and aggregates and grows into free versions of things which are sold for big bucks by the Big Corps. Horrors!
The funny thing is that the home computer was originally invented and sold by hobbyists for hobbyists. --It was only later that the big corps came along and provided well-made software, --and we paid them big money for it.
But then came along the internet and Hobbyists began to network. Networking is incredibly powerful, and the internet is a great place to organize and assemble big code projects. --Like a cool hobby convention which is run 24/7, and only a few mouse clicks away. How fantastic!
And just look at how much fire and hot air has been spent by the Big Corps in an effort to quash the people who enjoy coding together. It'd be like if, through some strange twist of economics and social science, a shoe company, like Nike, somehow decided that non-professional basket ball players were a threat to their revenue and started vilifying free sports.
But guess what? There will always be jobs for coders. Free things aren't going to kill the job place. There's always going to be people who need coders to help make their computers go. Games don't code themselves. Every new piece of hardware with a chip in it needs a team of people to make it work. There's always going to be work out there, so the fear factor is totally unnecessary.
Unless, of course, you happen to be Microsoft, which only through a fluke, became as big and powerful as they did. Remember the days when operating systems were on chips and came built into your computer? It's only through a severe perversion of rationality that the world slipped away from the old model of doing things and a couple of guys in Redmond became billionaires.
Things balance out in the end, and we'll all have fun doing it.
Cheers, and have a great day!
-FL
In the many Slashdot discussions on China and the internet, there's always this great debate between folks that see the internet as a philosophical movement to free the world from government oppression versus others who see it as a technology that, as it matures, needs to conform to the laws of the countries it operates in.
I see a very similar divide within open source. The original open source movement started as a free software/anti-software patent movement supported by an alturistic (and idealistic) global community united by their belief that software should be free and shared. As the open source movement has matured (or devolved), the big boys have stepped in (IBM/Oracle/SUN/HP) and taken over much of the 'real' Linux movement (i.e. enterprise-class), open source is MUCH more about enabling these companies to compete against Microsoft.
These vendors could really care less about the ideals of the open source and shared development except to the extent it destroys its competitors. In a recent talk I attended by IBM, they argued that they embraced open source specifically because it gave them a strong competative advantage and crushed the opposition. In effect, IBM develops high-end software, makes tons of money for 3-4 years, then releases it into open source as soon as their profit margins starts to slide because of new competition. Thus, in effect, they undermine the competition by giving away the software.
Also, open source used to be about open SOURCE. Now 99% of the world sees open source as FREE software and really could care less about the SOURCE part. That's certainly the only part 'real' businesses care about.
So, rather than bashing Microsoft for trying to co-exist with open source, keep in mind that the large companies embracing open source are only doing it for business reasons rather than some philosophical alignment with and belief in the goodness of open source. They could care less about all that crap. And their customers could care less for the most part.
That's not "open source". "If you pay me enough, you can see my proprietary source code" is a common closed source modus operandi.
Now, its possible to be "open source" without being "free software", but "you can pay me and accept terms that prohibit you from making derivatives without paying an additional license fee and I'll let you see my source code" is neither "open source" nor "free software".